Herman Miller's New SAYL Chair by Yves Behar

I went to a big "birthday party" for a chair last night. It was the first of many (global!) events that Herman Miller will be throwing in the coming weeks and months to help get the word out on their newest addition to their venerable task chair family. Yves Behar, the designer, was on hand to help make the introductions...

During the launch event at the Museum of Contemporary Art (notice the wonderful Calder exhibit in the background), I snapped a few pics, talked to the Herman Miller team and had the chance to meet with Yves Behar (a super nice man, surfer and new dad), all in all, a fun and enlightening evening.

Here are a few notes on the new chair:

• The design process that Behar and the team went through for this chair helped them to coin the term "eco-dematerialization" — an awesome new phrase all about reducing the mass of each and every component of the chair and while the materials were minimized, the design maximizes the usefulness of each molecule of the finished product. Kindness to the earth through better, more thoughtful design.

• The back of the chair is frameless and flexible but super strong and ergonomically supportive. The structure and design of the "3D Intelligent Surface" material provides different levels of support for different parts of your back as you sit and move.

• It's a striking design, unusual and a bit radical, and beautiful in its lightness and transparency. We can imagine it lightening the visual load of any workspace, making for a more welcoming room overall.

• The price point ($399.) is super reasonable and was part of the design brief from the beginning - it's just one part of the whole package, but an important one for consumers, especially those who are shopping for a home office.